Written By:

Blakely Knowles  |  Marketing Manager

Outdated tech solutions can seriously impede a business’ day-to-day operations, growth potential, and even employee satisfaction.

When Taylor Hodson, a boutique staffing Firm and B2B Consulting Partner in New York City, approached The CRM Firm, their problem was just that— their existing technology lacked functionality and customization resulting in a complex, time-consuming manual set of processes.

There are countless staffing software solutions on the market, but with budget and time constraints, and a business to run, the firm had little time for trial-and-error testing expensive solutions to find the right fit.

Taylor Hodson partnered with The CRM Firm as recruiting solution experts and trusted Salesforce advisors to build a custom solution that met their business needs and improved operational efficiency and customer experience.

Here’s how we did it.

The Business Problem: Migrating Off a Rigid, Cost-Ineffective Recruiting Solution onto a Flexible Solution that Minimized Manual Output

When it comes to your CRM platform, sometimes simplicity isn’t the solution. This was certainly true for Taylor Hodson.

Using Mindscope as their recruiting solution left internal employees and dozens (hundreds?) of temporary workers frustrated and burdened by an inflexible solution that failed to meet their unique business requirements. The team struggled to run simple day-to-day reports and data exports, while temps lost crucial time to manual, Excel-based time entry and other antiquated processes.

With their existing tech solutions, the firm was unable to automate simple processes, properly integrate with their external payroll provider, or even rely on customer support to assist in solutioning. The result was wasted time and energy, inefficient operations and a frustrated team.

This was not the right solution for Taylor Hodson, but what was?

Problem Solved: Implementing The CRM Firm’s Salesforce-based Templated Recruiting Solution

Our templated recruiting solution and years of Executive Search and Recruiting industry experience made The CRM Firm the perfect fit as Taylor Hodson’s partner in solutioning this huge gap in their operational efficiency and technology solution.

Our in-depth discovery process was expedited to focus on understanding in detail the firm’s solution offerings and internal business processes. In doing so, we were able to quickly identify which components of our solution would provide the greatest benefit to Taylor Hodson and how we should prioritize project phasing.

Ultimately, we determined the best course of action to be migrating to Salesforce and implementing ExecATS— The CRM Firm’s Salesforce-based templated recruiting solution, but with specific customizations to meet the firm’s unique business requirements.

Solution Specifics: The Right Tech Stack to Get the Job Done Well

The ExecATS integration modules required to meet the firm’s business needs were Salesbolt, to integrate with LinkedIn and automate CRM contact updates, KonaSearch, to deliver speed and accuracy to the candidate search and matching process, and Sovren’s resume parser, the most accurate resume parser in the world.

But the solutioning didn’t stop there.

Initially, a custom API to Taylor Hodson’s new payroll provider was identified as a later-phase requirement, but ExecATS’ Time Sheet module improved processes so much so that hours of weekly work on the legacy system were reduced to 15-minutes per week, followed by a simple weekly data import to the payroll system.

The cost-benefit of a custom API was deemed unnecessary given the simplicity of a once-per-week upload from a standard Salesforce report export.

To meet the needs of their temporary workers on assignment, Salesforce Sales Cloud Enterprise Edition with Customer Community was implemented as a time entry portal.

Embracing New Technology

While many clients don’t have a dedicated Salesforce resource, or a team member tech savvy enough to truly trudge through the trenches alongside us, this project was unique, and our client had the technical aptitude and desire to learn Salesforce along the way.

With minimal guidance and occasional review, he configured his own screens, pages, reports, and flow automation and self-implemented integrated SMS functionality. This benefited the project team and had a positive impact on the budget.

The Business Impact: How the Right Solution Took the Dread out of Day-to-Day Operations

It’s tough to put a number on the significant impact that the right tech solutions have on operational efficiency and team morale. But if we must, we’ll give it a ten.

A strategic shift off an inflexible system and onto a recruiting system that works for them resulted in a significant* reduction in the amount of time it takes each week for temporary workers to log time to their assignment, and Taylor Hodson’s internal staff members to manually review & approve those time entries.

Further, the automated reporting feature to inform clients of hours worked on their assignments; and to get weekly data into the payroll system streamlined the communication, reporting and customer experience.

Feature Flex: The Creative Problem-Solving We Enjoyed Most

At The CRM Firm, creative problem-solving is a key ingredient in our recipe for success. And we love little more than a good challenge.

For the client’s custom solution, we enhanced the ExeCATS Time Sheet solution to include a mobile version to better support temporary workers without desktop PCs. This made it easier and more convenient for them to enter their time.

How Could the Right Tech Solution and a Team of Dedicated Experts Impact Your Business’ Operations and Growth Potential?

With the client’s help, we were able to imagine and implement a bespoke system that fully supports Taylor Hodson’s customer-specific value proposition, vastly improves team and temporary worker experience and efficiency, and transforms day-to-day operations— creating a 180-degree change from the legacy black-box platform of their past.

If a reimagined CRM solution and a team of dedicated experts could transform your business’ functionality, operational efficiency and overall team and customer experience, contact The CRM Firm to discuss your custom solution.

If you would like a demonstration of how Salesforce can support your company’s staffing efforts or are interested in evaluating Salesforce more broadly as an ATS platform via ExecATS, please fill out the contact form HERE and someone will be in touch soon.